Category: Miscellaneous

Has it been ten years? Almost, I first started publishing this blog on November 1, 2007. I’ll stop publishing on Tuesday, July 19, 2017.

That said, the blog articles will be available until December 10, 2017. This will give you time to download any articles you may want to keep.

Thank you all for stopping by. I have made some good friends here, Baz, Chris, Jason, Thomas and too many others to mention. All the best with your trading, every success.

Turning to today’s entry: I’ll finish the commentary on the GBPCAD trade. At the July 12 presentation, I started the analysis, but we couldn’t see the beginning of the trade because the BoC’s figures came out at 22:00 Singapore just as the presentation concluded.

Those of you who attended will know I was looking for the BoC not to raise rates. I mapped out a strategy for the expected ensuing rallying. I also mapped a strategy if it did. In the latter case, I concluded that:

given where the pair was trading ahead of the number; and

given that I expected the daily range to be between 190 – 300 pips, I was not prepared to sell the pair on the news.

Instead, I said I’d wait for the rally.

The BoC did raise rates. The GBPCAD then fell; we saw 315 pip range for the day. So, yesterday I was looking for a rally.

Figure 1 shows provide two important bits of information:

Acceptance above the blue 120% (1.6789, I’ll round that to 1.6790) tells me that the current structure, the 5-day swing downtrend, is probably over; breach of the 5-d swing high at 1.6975 will confirm).

The red lines show the 5-day resistance levels.

Figure 2 shows the 60-minute chart with resistance levels. Yesterday, the GBPCAD moved into the bottom of my preferred zone, and I took the trade at 1.6473. My initial stop (hard) is above 1.6616; my soft stop is above 1.6577.

Yesterday, the GBPCAD moved into the bottom of my preferred zone, and I took shorts at 1.6473. My initial hard stop is above 1.6616; my soft stop is above 1.6577.

(By ‘hard’ I mean ‘the stop order is resting in the market’; by ‘soft’, I mean I’ll be looking to exit should I see acceptance above 1.6577)

I believe there is a 50-50 chance will see a test of 1.6530 to 1.6565 today to establish a congestion high on the 60-min. The congestion low is at 1.6354.

Firstly, we’re looking to change the abysmal success-trading stats. By attending, you’ll acquire a model for trading success. But, note this is a partnership: we provide the information, you provide the action.

If you are looking for a no-work, get-rich approach, don’t come. July 12 is grounded in reality – what I have found works in over 30 years trading.

Secondly, this is a value-rich offer. Here’s one of many emails:

hello Ray,no issue with me. you can place me for the live stream. the cost is trivial for the knowledge shared.thanks.best regards.– eddie“

We needed to postpone the event from July 5 to July 12 because July 5 was a public holiday in the US. (We will be trading the FX markets, so we wanted a day whose volatility was not circumscribed by holidays).

Eddie had registered for the July 5, in-person, presentation and could not attend July 12. We had to move him to the live-stream.

Why did he consider the cost trivial? Well, he has attended one of my courses. So, he knows how much effort we put into our side of the partnership – and the results he secured when he lived up to his.

Secondly, there’s the super value package you receive by attending:

Video of July 12

The Rule of 3Ms for Preparation, Execution and Review of Trading Mindmap (includes Free Viewer or HTML)

Equity Spreadsheet + Video

Mechanical system + Video

Video for Psych template in Evernote:

Deliberative Practice Material

The Beginners Guide to Deliberative Practice

The Making of An Expert

Beyond the 10,000 Hour Myth – How We Really Acquire Skills

The in-person event is limited to 100 registrations. Our joint-venture Oanda began its staggered mail out yesterday. If you are planning to register for Singapore, best do it as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Nothing to do with trading or finance today. Occasionally, I come across an offer that I’ll pass on, simply because I consider it great value. Today is such a day.

But first: Happy July 4 to all my US readers!

Those who know me, know that I am passionate about improving my skills. Many moons ago, I adopted Mindmapping. I apply this skill to all areas of my life – reading, memory, planning, etc.

Last year I took a course called Mindmap to Kanban by Faizel Mohidin.

You’ve never heard of Kanban? At the time, neither had I. But, with Mindmap to Kanban, I learned and am now applying it daily. It’s has improved my personal effectiveness by 50% or more. If you want to learn more about personal Kanban go to:

Deepest apologies. By now those who registered for the July 5 event, would have received our advice – I totally messed up!

I assumed July 5 was a work day in the US. In fact, it’s the last day of the July 4 holiday. As a result, we should see very quiet trading. The live-trading is a core port of the July presentation. Rather than be certain of having to skip it, I decided to postpone.

I realise that some you will not be able to attend. Of course, we will refund the S$20.00. On the other hand, if you wanted the video and all the bonuses, we can:

For those in Singapore, swap you to the live-stream. You’ll receive the video and all the goodies.

For those ex-Singapore, you’ll receive the video as well as the extras.

I’ll let you decide – just drop us a line.

The new date is July 12. I hope to see you there.

BTW, if you are an Aussie reader, drop me a line at

ramonbarros@tradingsuccess.com

and I’ll send you a piece on Aussie real estate prices. The piece makes for an interesting read.

Yesterday, I slipped and either tore, or severely strained, some back muscles – making sitting and walking very painful. If the muscles are only strained, I’ll be back in a couple of days; if they have been torn, well…..who knows?

Tomorrow, I’ll conclude “Trade War – Black Swan?“. I was going to do it today, but we have been inundated with questions about July 5. I’ll answer those questions now.

The objective on July 5 to leave the participants with a trading process that will improve their results. We’re looking to achieve this by:

providing the needed ideas and theory. The ideas that have served me when managing the private-partnership hedge fund (1990 to 2010) and my own trading.

illustrating the ideas with real-time trading at the presentation; and

providing the tools to apply the ideas.

The ideas will cover the “3 Biggest Mistakes Traders Make” and how to avoid them. Without giving the presentation away, I think it’s safe to say that at least one is not normally associated with trading. Yet, the failure to address this issue just about guarantees failure.

We’ll be trading the markets live. On this blog, I posted about the system we’ll be using. It’s ideal for the presentation: short-term with an amazing expectancy return. And no, I won’t be presenting its rules. I will be using it to show the process all successful traders (in one form or another) for their trades. It’s also a process few, if any, losing traders apply.

The psychology for using the system is a simple one: attendees will follow the success process if they associate it with a profitable trade. The research shows we retain 75% of what we practice and only 5% of what we hear.

The tools we’re giving away?

The equity spreadsheet I use to use before I adopted Edgewonk. Indeed, I am still using it because it provides data that Edgewonk does not. We’ll be sending the spreadsheet out before the event.

A trading system using end-of-day data. The reason for this timeframe is I expect most attendees to have full-time jobs. I believe it’s not possible to apply consistently system rules that utilise intra-day data. Only July 8, the system rules will be sent to all registrants together with a ‘how to apply’ video.

Firstly, thanks for the emails and comment regarding the negative expectancy of the backtesting results. The feedback shows someone is reading my blogs! I sometimes wonder.

Apologies for the error when writing up the results. I reversed the Avg@Win and Avg$Loss numbers. The correct numbers are:

Avg$Win: 823.00

Avg$Loss 360.00

Update on registrations: 5. So, unless we see a pickup, it’s unlikely we’ll proceed (we need 25 more). Thanks to those who have signed up. If you are planning to join, please drop me a line indicating your interest: ramonbarros@tradingsuccess.com

Turning to today’s blog……

Thanks to those who wrote in asking how to apply ‘play the player’.

Frankly, it’s not a question I felt qualified to answer. Luckily, yesterday, Alex replied to that very query. So, I have attached his reply below. In his article, he made an offer to provide a checklist.

If you’d like a copy, I do have a request: please send your requests to the ‘blog comment section’ and not to my email. Thanks, I’d appreciate the cooperation.

By the way, if you like Alex’s pieces, please write to him at alex@micro-ops.com to see how to get onto his subscription list.

I was hoping to have the URL landing page up on the blog today. But, gremlins struck. While waiting for the solution, I thought it best to see if you there is enough interest from you to run the streaming. We need at least 30 to cover live streaming costs.

Program:

Our objective is to provide a content-rich presentation that will allow attendees to kick start their profitability.

To this end, I’ll be providing live FX trading to illustrate the ideas presented. You’re asked to join in the process because we remember 75% of what we do and only 5% of what we hear.

The content will cover the ‘3 Mistakes Losing Traders Make and what you do to avoid them and join the 10% who win’.

Here is what you’ll come away with after attending:

A video of the event.

A process for analysing and reviewing your trades.

An equity journal (spreadsheet with macros): to provide the stats you need to improve your trading. Googling for ‘download trading equity journals‘, I found prices ranged from USD 120.00 to USD 200.00

A trading plan (backtesting results attached)

A template for your psych journal.

In short, everything you need to your trading profitable. An attendee described it as a mini-trading course.

It’s important to understand that the event is a partnership: we provide the information, you provide the action – no action from you, means no benefits.

I was planning to post this on Monday, June 19. But, I received quite a few emails asking how to register, so I’m posting the entry today. The link for registration will be posted on June 19.

The main email question raised was: how is July 5 different? It’s different because I’m attempting to synthesise live trading with supporting content.

If you have attended a live trading presentation, you’ll probably have shared the same reaction: how boring!

The presenter rattles on about what he plans to do;

The market does its thing, taking its own sweet time. In the meantime, the presenter has to somehow fill the empty minutes. You know the ones, the minutes spent waiting for the trade to setup and follow-through!

That’s what I wanted to avoid. So, on July 5, the real-time trading will be used as a context to a process. Follow the process you ensure you are taking a high-quality trade:

One with the appropriate reward: risk ratio, and

One with the pre-planning that prevents the 3Fs (fight, flight, or fear) from kidnapping our neo-cortex. As a result, you’ll eliminate most of your impulse trades.